Graphical settings feed back test

[TrixxieTriss]

System : Windows 10 Pro 64 bit 1709 (build 16299.1087)

i7 5770k @ 4.8 GHz (water cooled), 16GB G.Skill Trident Ram, 512GB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD.

Asus TUF Z370-PRO GAMING, MSI GTX 1080 GAMING X 8G (nvidia driver : 425.31), 3 x 24” 1080 monitors

 

Testing graphical performance (as I’ve not seen anyone else do this yet)

 

General setting : VSync off, Full screen, resolution 5760x1080, refresh rate 60, frame rate 60 (changing doesn’t do anything, still doesn’t work)

 

Advanced settings all turned to maximum to start testing.

 

Test environment one : Imperial fleet (3 people on fleet, 1 map)

 

All at Max settings :

FPS : 171ms (red - green)

Bloom on FPS = 171ms, Bloom off FPS = 181ms

Very noticeable amount of Jerky or laggy feeling when turning or when moving near another player or NPC vendor.

Keep testing with Bloom off

 

Start turning down settings :

 

1. Shadow map resolution turned down each notch from 2048 to 1024

No noticeable change in jerky feeling

FPS does not change

 

2. Shadow map cascades set to : high

FPS : 162ms (red), drops to 159ms (red) near another player

Zero change in jerky feeling while turning and running

 

3. Shadow map cascades set to : medium

FPS : 193ms (red + yellow), drops to 148ms near another player

Small change in jerky feeling while turning and running. But still noticeable.

 

4. Shadow quality set to : low (with shadow map cascades at medium)

FPS : 173ms (green), drops to 149ms near another player

Zero noticeable change in jerky feeling from number 3 test.

 

5. Shadow quality set to : off (disables map cascades and shadow map resolution)

FPS : 203ms (green + yellow), drops to 164ms near another player

Can still notice jerky feeling (but not as bad)

 

6. Enhanced shadows turned : off

FPS : 221ms (red), drops to 180ms when running near another player

Jerky feeling gone

 

Start turning settings back up with Enhanced shadows off

 

7. Shadow quality set to : low (with shadow map cascades at medium)

FPS : 213ms (red), drops to 176ms near another player running

Small detectable jerky feeling (but only slightly)

 

8. Shadow quality set to : high (with shadow cascades at medium)

FPS : 189ms (red + yellow), drops to 139-162ms near another player running

Definitely noticeable jerky feeling while running and turning

 

9. Ended test there because higher settings would only show worse results.

 

Went to test in Coruscant strong hold with no decorations and only 1 person instance.

Similar results as Fleet. Only variance was slightly higher FPS.

 

My Conclusions :

Enhanced shadows is a major factor in causing the jerky feeling when turning. Shadow in general also plays a role in this.

Bloom contributes to the problem, but not as much.

Other players in the area have a negative net affect of FPS (shouldn’t be this bad for 1 person. I can only imagine how much worse this will be when you have full multiple map instances)

FPS is high enough, so these problems shouldn’t be happening. More work needs to happen to optimise shadows.

 

My system is above average and should be more than sufficient to run this game on full (smoothly). Which I do on live. I think these changes will impact a fair few people and running at max setting (smoothly) will be the domain of those with better systems than mine.

Edited September 19, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[phalczen]

I seem to recall a post years ago explaining that PTS doesn’t have the same optimizations as live so often graphical performance issues seen on PTS won’t show up on live. That’s not to discount your observations, but I’d love for a yellow post to confirm my recollection.

[TrixxieTriss]

I seem to recall a post years ago explaining that PTS doesn’t have the same optimizations as live so often graphical performance issues seen on PTS won’t show up on live. That’s not to discount your observations, but I’d love for a yellow post to confirm my recollection.

 

Yes, that would be helpful. Either way, they have introduced new graphical affects and changes, so testing them on the pts should also be done with full optimisations.

[xordevoreaux]

I use nvidia profile inspector to tweak my nvidia card.

 

WIth inspector's tweaks I get decent performance but I have ambient occlusion disabled (enhanced shadows). I enhance the performance with a 16x texture filter, push the negative LOD in this DX9 game a little more negative to pull out the textures even more, and the results are nice, 45-60 FPS on my GTX 1050 Ti, not complaining for a card that was under $200.

[TrixxieTriss]

I use nvidia profile inspector to tweak my nvidia card.

 

WIth inspector's tweaks I get decent performance but I have ambient occlusion disabled (enhanced shadows). I enhance the performance with a 16x texture filter, push the negative LOD in this DX9 game a little more negative to pull out the textures even more, and the results are nice, 45-60 FPS on my GTX 1050 Ti, not complaining for a card that was under $200.

 

You should not need to do any of that to play the game as standard. Especially with a system like mine.

 

How do you go with bloom and other shadow settings? I know from my testing that FPS alone doesn’t guarantee smooth game play. Even at 160-200ms FPS, shadows cause problems with the standard in game settings (no third party tweaks)

 

Posting your exact system and windows build with nvidia driver build and not using inspector tweaks is far more valuable feed back. That way they can try and maximise the system for lower powered cards.

Edited September 21, 2019 by TrixxieTriss

[xordevoreaux]

You should not need to do any of that to play the game as standard. Especially with a system like mine.

 

How do you go with bloom and other shadow settings? I know from my testing that FPS alone doesn’t guarantee smooth game play. Even at 160-200ms FPS, shadows cause problems with the standard in game settings (no third party tweaks)

 

Posting your exact system and windows build with nvidia driver build and not using inspector tweaks is far more valuable feed back. That way they can try and maximise the system for lower powered cards.

 

 

It's a 7-year computer, a 3770-K Ivy Bridge I-7 processor, 32GB of ram, the 1050 GTX TI, a 480gb SSD and 3TB of secondary storage across two HDDs, win 10... with a 60MHz monitor. Win 10 version is 1903 (build 18362.356) and I'm using nvidia WQHL 436.30. Both the CPU and GPU are overclocked by about 5%.

 

I love the nvidia inspector graphics card tweaks. With my system, I cannot simultaneously achieve brilliant texture, great shadows, and crisp lines with the default nvidia experience settings. With this old box, I must choose, and the nvidia inspector shows that the nvidia Experience default settings are a poor choice all the way around.

 

The inspector shows that nvidia Expeience defaults everything to application controlled, meaning no extra capacity on the card is ever utilized when even with this low-budget card there's things I can push higher, like 16x texture sampling. The inspector shows that nVidia Experience sets that to application controlled as well, and SWTOR's game client is certainly not sampling 16x textures nor using sparse grid anti-aliasing. Having Experience set the game settings to adjust for the card is not all what the card can do. For that you need Inspector to expose more card rendering options than is available with Experience or in-game settings.

 

I do keep the SWTOR-based setting of not allowing TRAA (transparency anti-aliasing) which produces crisp lines, but then I can add to that any of a number of different anti-aliasing methods. No such functionality with nvidia Experience.

 

8x multi-sampling is the most economical, but 12x mixed supersampling / multisampling gives cleaner lines. The best is sparse grid super sampling (SGSS) but regardless of the 4-bit compatibility setting for that (the standard being 0x000012C1 for SGSSAA) is completely incompatible with SWTOR's bloom effect (creates edge bleed) and absolutely kills frame rate for shadows, but man those lines are crisp.

 

I like the bloom so with the default no TRAA setting with zero flags for compatibility and set the render mode to enhance rather than replace, meaning it takes whatever the game renders and works it a bit higher. I've put it in replace mode before, but that requires SGSS for anything nice and like I mentioned that kills using bloom (the edge bleed is just too annoying).

 

When I want to test my framerate, I hop over to Alderaan and swing the camera at the trees and mountains (shadow rendering hell). The inspector settings I have now along with medium cascades and high quality lighting moves my frame rate from 60 to 45-50, which I'm happy with.

 

Getting a better box isn't an option for me. I've more important bleeds for my money right now, even the game subscription is a luxury, so having a free program that tweaks my card to work render better than the game natively does is great.

 

I used nvidia Experience to set the optimal settings for Sims 4 and I might as well have put my graphics card next to the manifold of my car engine for the heat it put out. I had to pull those settings down real quick. I now get good frame rates without melting my card, but only achieved that with Inspector. Experience was a disaster.

 

Skyrim SE, blessedly, hums along just swell, but by virtue of a better graphical engine and based on a more efficient platform (DX11 rather than Sim 4's or SWTOR's clunky DX9).

Edited September 21, 2019 by xordevoreaux

[TrixxieTriss]

It's a 7-year computer, a 3770-K Ivy Bridge I-7 processor, 32GB of ram, the 1050 GTX TI, a 480gb SSD and 3TB of secondary storage across two HDDs, win 10... with a 60MHz monitor. Win 10 version is 1903 (build 18362.356) and I'm using nvidia WQHL 436.30. Both the CPU and GPU are overclocked by about 5%.

 

I love the nvidia inspector graphics card tweaks. With my system, I cannot simultaneously achieve brilliant texture, great shadows, and crisp lines with the default nvidia experience settings. With this old box, I must choose, and the nvidia inspector shows that the nvidia Experience default settings are a poor choice all the way around.

 

The inspector shows that nvidia Expeience defaults everything to application controlled, meaning no extra capacity on the card is ever utilized when even with this low-budget card there's things I can push higher, like 16x texture sampling. The inspector shows that nVidia Experience sets that to application controlled as well, and SWTOR's game client is certainly not sampling 16x textures nor using sparse grid anti-aliasing. Having Experience set the game settings to adjust for the card is not all what the card can do. For that you need Inspector to expose more card rendering options than is available with Experience or in-game settings.

 

I do keep the SWTOR-based setting of not allowing TRAA (transparency anti-aliasing) which produces crisp lines, but then I can add to that any of a number of different anti-aliasing methods. No such functionality with nvidia Experience.

 

8x multi-sampling is the most economical, but 12x mixed supersampling / multisampling gives cleaner lines. The best is sparse grid super sampling (SGSS) but regardless of the 4-bit compatibility setting for that (the standard being 0x000012C1 for SGSSAA) is completely incompatible with SWTOR's bloom effect (creates edge bleed) and absolutely kills frame rate for shadows, but man those lines are crisp.

 

I like the bloom so with the default no TRAA setting with zero flags for compatibility and set the render mode to enhance rather than replace, meaning it takes whatever the game renders and works it a bit higher. I've put it in replace mode before, but that requires SGSS for anything nice and like I mentioned that kills using bloom (the edge bleed is just too annoying).

 

When I want to test my framerate, I hop over to Alderaan and swing the camera at the trees and mountains (shadow rendering hell). The inspector settings I have now along with medium cascades and high quality lighting moves my frame rate from 60 to 45-50, which I'm happy with.

 

Getting a better box isn't an option for me. I've more important bleeds for my money right now, even the game subscription is a luxury, so having a free program that tweaks my card to work render better than the game natively does is great.

 

I used nvidia Experience to set the optimal settings for Sims 4 and I might as well have put my graphics card next to the manifold of my car engine for the heat it put out. I had to pull those settings down real quick. I now get good frame rates without melting my card, but only achieved that with Inspector. Experience was a disaster.

 

Skyrim SE, blessedly, hums along just swell, but by virtue of a better graphical engine and based on a more efficient platform (DX11 rather than Sim 4's or SWTOR's clunky DX9).

 

But what’s the performance like without using the nvidia inspector? What are the highest settings you can run just using the in game ones. ie, what is your antialiasing or anisotropic filtering set at before you start having performance issues.

[xordevoreaux]

But what’s the performance like without using the nvidia inspector? What are the highest settings you can run just using the in game ones. ie, what is your antialiasing or anisotropic filtering set at before you start having performance issues.

 

These are the disparities between what I have set and what nvidia Experience wants to set it to were I to hit the Optimize button (I'm leaving out the properties that match)

 

Property [inspector] / [nvidia experience]

 

Display Mode Windowed borderless / full-screen

Grass Render distance medium / ultra

Shadow Map Cascades Medium / very high

Tree Quality 12 / 100

Visible character limit — / Very High ( — meaning not set by Inspector)

MFS Anti-aliasing Off / On

 

I hit Optimize on Experience

I hit All Defaults on Inspector

 

Now I'm logging in and heading to Alderaan to do my shadow test at looking at trees / mountains (about the most demanding I ever see)

 

Results with everything fully defaulted:

1. I get 55 to 60 FPS but with video hitching, meaning I take 4 strides, rendering freezes, take 4 strides, the rendering freezes again, and all I'm doing is running back and forth across the same 50-yard stretch of grass on Alderaan. I know the hitching is caused by the card working at full screen with no frame rate limiting in place, it's just a driver bug that's been around a long time, but guess what, to lower it to about 55 to stop the hitching is only possible with nvidia inspector. Plus at full screen, the game minimizes when I click on the other monitor. Useless.

 

2. Jaggies which to me look like the game is set to 4x multi-multisampling, maybe 8, can't tell without looking at Inpector.

 

Now reverting, with the results:

 

1. Hitching is gone and Alderaan's looking good at 55-60 and easily getting 60 most other places (windowed full screen with no throttling of the frame rate using the card's frame rate delimiter setting that's exposed using Inspector).

 

2. Far fewer jaggies (some textures look hideous no matter the settings because they're bad textures to begin with, like the side of this taxi) but edges are cleaner.

 

 

There are definitely higher settings I would prefer to set on the card via Inspector but the framerate drops too low (35-40) to be meaningful. Some settings I can manage at higher frame rates but then bloom goes to hell (edge burn at the top of the screen) and to me the game just looks stupid without bloom so forget that. Edge burn usually happens when inspector replaces rather than enhances existing settings, even with proper compatibility bits set on the anti-aliasing settings.

 

One setting I like drives my framerate from about 60 to 30-36 is 16xs AA (not to be confused with 16x texture filtering). 16xs AA is 2x2 supersampling combined with 4x multisampling. Looks okay but there's an interface freak-out in SWTOR with certain dialog boxes retaining their back-fill black backgrounds even after the dialog box frames should be clipping them to the desired shape. Not horribly annoying but annoying nonetheless. I could live with that if the FS didn't halve.

[xordevoreaux]

I lowered the shadow quality from high to low and bumped AA from 8x to 12x which combines 2x2 super-sampling with 4x overgrid multi-sampling (OGMS) which isn't quite as good as 16x but the AA is far cleaner than 8x.

 

With all of the settings that combine super-sampling with multi-sampling (8x, 12x, 16x, 32x) I get the black box issue, but I'm getting 55 FPS on Alderaan for having lowered the shadow setting. Not quite as beautiful but decent. I still get this effect which I quite like with the light reflecting off and highlighting edges of tree foliage). Any lower shadow setting wouldn't permit this and things would look dull and flat.

Edited September 21, 2019 by xordevoreaux

[xordevoreaux]

The black box issue isn't horrid, mostly affecting the "guild such-and-such controls this sector" message at the top of the screen, and that only is presented for a few seconds. I wanted to show it to you but I've gone to Yavin, Oricon, Tatt, and Coruscant, they're all not controlled so the message looks fine.

No biggie.

[TrixxieTriss]

If it was me I would just disable shadows.